Radical Realisms in Contemporary British Theatre: Rethinking Feminist Form in Plays by Women

This book offers radical new insights into the relation between realism, feminism and gender identities in contemporary theatre. It maps the theatrical forms emerging from a ’new wave’ of women’s playwriting in Britain in the 2010s, unsettling the boundaries between what is conventionally considered realist and what is considered experimental.

While realism has often been characterized as a politically conservative form in feminist criticism, the author argues that contemporary feminist plays demonstrate the potential of realism, both artistically and politically, to adapt and respond to our changing world. By re-encountering realism as an experimental form through close analysis of plays and productions, the author reveals the radicalism of realism anew. Reconsidering longstanding debates in feminist theatre scholarship in the light of contemporary theatre practice in the UK, this book also offers a new, ’feminist formalist’ theoretical approach to analyzing plays.

Playwrights and practitioners studied include RashDash, Katie Mitchell, Alice Birch, Ella Hickson, Jasmine Lee-Jones, Tanika Gupta, Young Jean Lee, Lucy Kirkwood, Travis Alabanza, Yaël Farber, Split Britches and Caryl Churchill. Case studies are enriched by original interviews with practitioners, as well as performance analysis, close reading and archival research. This book explores and celebrates the vitality and inventiveness of contemporary feminist playwriting.

Hannah Greenstreet is Lecturer in Creative Writing: Stage and Screen at the University of Liverpool, UK. She completed her AHRC-funded DPhil, which was awarded the Swapna Dev Memorial Prize for the best thesis in the Faculty of English at the University of Oxford, UK, in 2021. She is also a playwright and theatre critic and served as Co-Editor of Exeunt Magazine from 2018-2022.